


abyssal roar

by idolatry (bellmare)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Emetophobia, Gen, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/idolatry
Summary: Be careful, lest you be crushed by your own hubris.-- Euphemia, Bel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> That awkward moment when someone trips and falls into the dead person abyss.

Xenophon vomited black sludge for days, after they pulled him from the Gate.

At first, Euphemia was relieved. Relieved because that meant that at least, he was still alive, and they’d managed to salvage something of him before he’d gone too deep. He may have been shaking, convulsing, spitting bile and acrid, viscous black sludge, but he was still very much alive. It was a start. It was enough

The sludge reeked of rot and saltwater, a stench that couldn’t quite be dispelled no matter how many times they cleaned, or washed it away. Xenophon, on his part, had little discernible response or reaction, but Euphemia wasn’t overly worried about that.

She’d been afraid when they dragged him out, but nobody had been able to find anything wrong -- at least, not on a superficial level. He hadn’t spent long enough in the still waters of the Sea of Samsara; they found him floating somewhere beneath the surface, not yet dragged into the deepest reaches. Regardless, he'd drifted and then sunk far enough that they still had to dredge him up, and guide him back to shallower waters.

Xenophon turned over slowly in the water, floating on his back. His limbs hung limp, his hair swirling around his face; he eventually came to a stop near the shore, gazing up at the sky full of stars. He was very still, barely stirring when the water lapped against his face, small ripples breaking over his face. The water around him looked oddly discoloured; with a jolt, Euphemia realised he was still bleeding, leaving a sluggish trail of murky red in the water. He hadn’t responded, either, when Euphemia splashed noisily across the water to reach him -- going against everything she’d ever been taught. She didn’t care what things she woke, what demons she’d attract from the deeper waters of the Naraka; someone attempted to grab her, to slow her down, but she shrugged them off and bent over Xenophon, trying to block out his view of the stars.

He gazed at her, unseeing. Euphemia’s hands shook when she reached forwards to brush the wet hair from his face; he didn’t even blink, when her unsteady fingers skimmed too close to his eyes.

Euphemia had feared the worst. It was one thing to be adrift in the Sea; it was another, altogether, to gaze up at the stars -- because that meant entrancement, and the possibility of never returning. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t that far gone -- he wasn’t pale like the rest of the dead, drowned things of the Naraka, the colour leached from his skin and hair. He also seemed whole enough, not yet eaten by the lesser demons that lurked the shallower waters of the Naraka, but that could mean nothing. The open wounds from his injuries could’ve been infected by demon miasm already; there was no way to tell.

This time, nobody interrupted her when she grabbed Xenophon by the shoulders and hauled him out of the Naraka. “We’re done here,” Euphemia spat, and quietly, they moved to help her. She could still smell the saltwater stink of the Naraka, long after they left the Gate.

For the first week, Xenophon slept. Euphemia tried to ignore the abnormal speed at which he healed, the skin and flesh from the injuries that had killed -- no, injured -- him knitting together seamlessly and flawlessly.

He woke up almost two weeks after they’d pulled him from the Sea. It made scarcely any difference, though -- he just stared blankly up at the ceiling, fingers loosely laced together over his stomach. Euphemia thought she was looking at a corpse laid out for display, a body immaculately embalmed and prepared in imitation of life.

The week after that, the vomiting started. Euphemia was dozing when Xenophon sat up abruptly, with scarcely any prior movement or sound to herald his sudden surge of energy. Before she could react or even move closer, he leaned over the edge of the bed and coughed and retched, and heaved black sludge onto the carpets. Bewildered, Euphemia could only watch. He hadn’t eaten anything proper for weeks, and yet the flow of ichor didn’t seem to end.

Then she saw the eyes. Tiny and still, she’d almost missed them, had mistaken them for clusters of bubbles catching the light. The eyes glinted, like a spill of tiny seed-pearls embedded in the sludge. Milky and opalescent, some moved and blinked and when she looked again they were attached to the small, squirming shapes of things moving in the sludge. They writhed and twitched and Euphemia breathed out a curse. She should have expected it; she should have known better than to think Xenophon could spend so long submerged in the Naraka, and remain untouched for it.

Sometimes it was just saltwater -- albeit dark and discoloured, smelling of blood and metal. Euphemia could ignore that; ingesting water was what happened when people almost drowned. Other times, Xenophon vomited up greasy, slimy gobbets of miasma, which stuck together in wet, slippery chunks more than vaguely reminiscent of blood clots. Sometimes there were eyes in there, deflated and blind and staring as those of dead fish. Other times, she found teeth and hints of bone -- which was even more unusual. The Naraka was populated by the dead, and the souls cycling through the Sea of Samsara had no concrete parts or physiology. Perhaps these were remnants of the others who had fallen into the Sea, and had been less fortunate than Xenophon. She preferred not to think too much about it, anyway.

A few times, he attempted to speak; once, he almost got close to saying her name. He’d never called her Effie before. The first half came out normal, the second in a slurred sigh that sounded like the breaking of a tide and the rasp of scales.

Over the days, Xenophon started shifting again, though Euphemia never had the heart to try and correct his form. He always managed about halfway, pushing his form into something that at least managed to be mostly leonine; here, the scars and gouges from his injuries were far more apparent. They occasionally discharged the same viscous black sludge he still vomited, the oozing ichor speckled with eyes and teeth. Sometimes the sludge formed itself into strange shapes; once, Euphemia saw the ragged spokes and curves of arched, spiraling horns peeking over his shoulders, the entry points starting somewhere at the back of his neck but hidden by the bulk of his mane. Another time, she saw the sludge shape itself into patches of dark, grimy scales down his back and flanks. This, too, Euphemia decided not to think too deeply about.

Bel and Lysander came to visit a month after Xenophon first started responding again. Both looked alarmingly similar to how they did when Euphemia first met them -- lean and ragged and edgy, with a kind of wariness in their eyes; both stepped from the hall and into the room with a careful, calculated purpose, as though they expected karma demons to jump out from behind the drapes. Bel in particular was thin and pale and unsmiling, for once, but Euphemia could almost feel and taste the change and shift in the air around her.

“Your pilgrimage was a success, then,” Euphemia said. Bel’s gaze slowly slid away from Xenophon, to meet Euphemia’s. The hint of a smile crawled to the corner of her mouth; there was something ugly and vicious about it, but when Euphemia looked closer it was no longer there.

“I suppose so,” Bel was saying. Euphemia didn’t bother to offer her congratulations. She had known Bel would succeed; there was no point in pointless pleasantries, particularly when she had better things to worry about.

“What happened?” Bel asked at last. She was surveying Xenophon with a vaguely pitying kind of curiosity. Xenophon had at least mustered up a better shift today; he was dozing, head upon his paws. For once, he didn’t have any strange horns or unusual limbs protruding from anywhere.

Euphemia took a deep breath, then another, tearing her eyes away from him. She'd practised this many times in the past few weeks, while she tried to puzzle out the reasons this happened. “He was unprepared,” she grit out.

Bel raised her brows. It was an infuriatingly patronising look, on her. “I never thought I'd hear you say that,” she remarked. “Admitting that Xenophon Leandros, your wonderful and illustrious elder brother who can do no wrong, heir and leader of the Leandros family, was unprepared like the rest of us poor plebeians. Goodness. If even he can make mistakes, there’s surely no hope for the rest of us.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Euphemia thought she saw one of Xenophon’s ears twitch. She turned back to Bel, feeling a cold knot of fury lodging beneath her breastbone. “You're hardly one to talk,” she snapped. “It was a calculated attack. They had demons. Powerful ones, and more than any of us anticipated. Under tighter control than anyone thought. They tore open a Hell’s Gate. Several went up against him and he couldn’t fight them all off, and then to ensure the--” here, she felt her lips curling over the words, “--the  _matter_ was resolved, they pushed him through the Gate and drowned him.”

“Ah.” Bel didn’t sound terribly surprised -- or, for that matter, interested. “I always told you, you and your family’s distaste for demons would be your downfall,” she said as she idly inspected a vase by the bedside. She peered into it, and then put it back. She seemed utterly unaffected by the acrid tang of metal and saltwater that clung to it. “Unusual, though. Few people can get strong enough control over demons, to compel them to destroy themselves and create Hell’s Gates. How fascinating.”

“You seem awfully familiar with the process of creating Hell’s Gates.”

“Me?” Bel’s eyes widened in mock hurt. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just consider it useful to know a lot of things.”

 _No wonder your family was marked for sealing,_ Euphemia wanted to say. Instead, she said, “your family must really have valued a comprehensive education.”

Bel lifted her right shoulder in a shrug. “So they did. And they were sealed for it. Still, how fascinating.”

“What’s fascinating?”

“The fact that there are people who have strong enough control over demons to override their own instincts.” Bel rocked back slightly on her heels. “I would like to meet them. Do you have any idea who the culprits were?”

“No,” Euphemia admitted. “But perhaps Xenophon will, once he--"

“Too unreliable,” Bel cut in with an air of decisiveness. “The first things that slip away are memories, and then the self. Usually both at once.”

“He’s not dead,” Euphemia said through her teeth.

“Oh?” Bel glanced over; Euphemia did too, despite herself. “Could’ve fooled me. For all intents and purposes, though, he was dead. I told you, Effie. Once things get too close to the Naraka, they can never go back to the way they were. Especially if they were alive at the time.”

“And I suppose you’re testament to that?” Euphemia asked.

Bel’s face was curiously expressionless. “Of course. Everything that gets too close to the Spine and the Root are changed for it, and marked accordingly as its products.” Her voice softened slightly; she tugged at the ends of her hair, winding a lock around her fingers. “With Xenophon, it will probably be the same, even if he didn’t spend long enough time there for it to immediately be apparent. What happened after that? Were there any survivors?”

“What do you even expect?” Euphemia asked. “Though at first, they ignored everyone and everything else. Taking him out was of the utmost priority.”

“Yes, I do suppose he posed more than just a slight threat.” Bel regarded her with an unreadable expression. “You were there?”

Euphemia bowed her head. “No. I only heard about it. By the time I made it back, it’d already been ... a while.”

Bel hummed under her breath. Euphemia wasn't sure whether it was assent, or amusement. “Perhaps I’ll drop by the place sometime.”

“What is even the point?” Euphemia demanded. “What’s done is done.”

Bel exhaled softly. “My. Such an emotional outburst from you. I’m surprised. And here I was thinking you’d never let that stone-faced façade slip, not even if someone died. I guess you really do have a heart, after all.”

Euphemia ignored her. “Do you make it a habit to tour the places in which people died? Is that it? Do your depths of depravity truly know no bounds?”

“Effie,” Bel said, with the air of patiently explaining something to a particularly mutinous child. “You can’t leave a Hell’s Gate open, no matter the size. No matter how small and insignificant it seems. Particularly not if the ones on the other side of the Gate have had a taste for ... something _fresh_.” Her gaze dropped to Xenophon. She reached out, and rested her hand on his mane, digging her fingers into the thick pelt. Euphemia resisted the urge to slap Bel's hand away. “Even once he’s been dredged out, the taste and impression of life will linger, and they’ll come looking for more.”

“Oh.” Euphemia blinked. “You’re ... I suppose you’re right. I never expected you to put so much thought into things, especially when it comes to considering more than just the immediate.”

Bel smiled, showing her teeth. Her pilgrimage to the Spine had taken its toll on her; her smile was mirthless and insincere as a skull’s grin, her eyes dark and shadowed. “I have a great deal of experience with demons, with how to call them and what offerings to make to appease them. Don’t worry, _sister_. I’ll close the Gate. Wouldn’t want you to have errant demons floating around now, would we?”

Euphemia clenched her teeth, returning Bel’s smile. “Of course not. It’s most kind of you.”

They fell back into silence. Euphemia crossed the room to push open a window, though the air still felt stiff and stifled.

“How long?” Lysander asked at last, breaking the silence after it stretched for far too lengthy and uncomfortable a time. It was the first time he'd spoken since arriving; Euphemia was surprised at the roughness of his voice. He cleared his throat, but didn't repeat himself.

Euphemia laced and unlaced her fingers, glad to have something to do, and something to think about. “A while. He regained consciousness a few weeks ago, but he’s been unresponsive.”

“Hm,” Bel said, but left it at that. Euphemia glanced at her. She was staring into the distance, her chin cupped in the palm of her hand.

“I feel like,” Euphemia said very softly, “I have made a terrible mistake.”

When nobody asked her to clarify, she continued on. “They always tell you to leave the dead alone.”

“How long?” Bel asked, her meaning and question completely different from Lysander’s.

“A few hours, I think,” Euphemia said. “But time flows differently there. I don’t know how long it actually was.”

“Infection would have set in,” Lysander said.

“Yes,” Bel agreed. “And deterioration will set in slowly and stealthily. It’ll be easy to miss -- though that really makes me wonder. He must not have been fully dead when he entered the Sea, if he’s still alive now. Nobody has been able to uncover the True Magic of bringing back the dead -- and you are hardly going to be the one to succeed.” She glanced up, slyly surveying Euphemia from beneath lowered lashes. "No offence."

“I know,” Euphemia said. “Whatever he was infected with may be able to ...”

Lysander averted his eyes. “To take over the host core.” He paused for several moments, as though that would soften the blow from his words. “You’ve thought about it, then?”

“Are you prepared for that eventuality?” Bel interrupted. “For the potential eventuality of having to kill him for certain, especially by your own hand?”

Euphemia waited a very long time before replying. “... I don’t know.”

“... and yet you also think you should have left him there to die,” Bel said. Her voice was no longer soft; Euphemia thought she saw a shadow of the girl Bel used to be, stirring in her eyes. A closed and unreadable look, edgy as a wild animal’s. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s those who vacillate on things. Indecision,” she added. “Make up your damn mind, Effie. You weren’t prepared to leave him, and yet you aren’t prepared to do what you have to, if he turns against you.”

“It’s easy for you to drop ultimatums like that,” Euphemia said. “Particularly from your side of the argument. Are _you_ prepared to do the same, if it ever fell to you?”

Bel didn’t blink. “I do everything wholeheartedly,” she said. “If it needs to be done, it will be done. You and I have very different ways of doing things, Effie. This only serves to highlight that.”

“I know the dead should stay dead,” Euphemia said and shut her eyes; she decided to stop paying attention to Bel. Her voice wavered. Bel opened her mouth to speak, and Euphemia cut her off before she could continue. “You could do to learn from this, Cybele. Think of this as some friendly advice, from me to you. Sister to sister, and then sovereign to sovereign.”

Bel looked at her, with the most infuriating expression of benign interest. “Oh, my, and now you find a way to turn this against me, when we’ve been busy talking about you and your issues. Very well, I better listen. Especially since you’re being so unusually forthcoming. What do you mean?

“You think you’re invincible. You think you’re on top of the world.” Euphemia could feel the words writhing in her throat, like a pit of snakes. Maybe this was what it was like for Xenophon, who’d spent the past few days spitting unending, squirming chunks of demon miasma. “You think nothing can hurt you -- especially now, especially when the Spine has accepted you as a witch queen. Let me tell you how wrong you are.” Euphemia took a step forward, and then stopped. She didn’t remember getting this close to Bel. Bel gazed coolly back at her, a curious and uncustomary bland politeness on her face.

Euphemia stared into her mismatched eyes; with a start, she realised Xenophon now had eyes like Bel, too. Eerily bright and vivid -- and worse, still, was that they both looked right through her. She swallowed down the twisting knot of anger, and said “now that you’re a witch queen, it would be good for you to remember one simple rule: when you live by the sword, you will also die by the sword.”

Bel lifted her chin slightly and smiled, but did not otherwise move or step back. “Thank you for that handy little morsel of information, Effie,” she purred. “I’ll keep your advice in mind. You do know, I respect your insights and opinions _so_ much. Especially since you started, what, only just before me? Yes, you truly are in such a wonderful place to be dispensing wisdom.”

“An insignificant head start, in the grand scheme of things,” Euphemia conceded, “but nonetheless--”

“ _But nonetheless_ you must realise, I have no intention of dying, or befalling the same fate as poor, dear Xenophon. I’ve been doing a rather admirable job of avoiding that, don’t you agree?”

Euphemia snarled. “Through the efforts and assistance of others, yes. You are a selfish fool, and one day your luck will run out.”

“Oh, really? How odd.” Bel clicked her tongue. “When I first came here, I heard people saying that all the time, that cats have nine lives. Though perhaps I may already have used one or two up in the process.”

“You’ll burn up the rest, sustaining that thing,” Euphemia said, and made a vague motion with her hand. “But that aside, even more people will be out for your head, especially if they uncover the truth -- and they will. Your predecessor’s backers, the ones who escaped -- they will be biding their time, just like you did. Our family can no longer shelter you, now that you’re going to be so prominently in the forefront of things ... especially after Xenophon’s fall. There is no running, or hiding--"

“And when have I ever ran and hid,” Bel said, deceptively light and conversational. Her voice set Euphemia’s teeth on edge. “I have never asked you or your family to protect me from anything.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Euphemia hissed. “Your recklessness and disregard for your own safety -- and in turn that of others -- will be the death of you. Just like it was to Xenophon.”

Bel’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, but you see, therein lies the crux of the matter. I have no intention of making the same mistakes. And, I daresay I have better failsafes than he did.”

“Are you telling me he made mistakes?” Euphemia asked despite herself, matching the sweetness of Bel’s voice.

“Of course he did.” Bel paused, deliberating over the words. “And he died for them. It’s one thing to trust in yourself and your instincts, but it’s another altogether to disrespect your enemies by underestimating them. Which is precisely what he did, by not thinking they'd be able to play such a hand against him.”

“Are you telling me you know better?” Euphemia laughed, the sound bursting out of her before she could stop it. “ _You_ , who has always been so blinded by your own arrogance and hubris?”

“There’s such a thing called learning from the mistakes of history,” Bel replied. “And especially from the mistakes of others.”

Euphemia sneered. “I should hope so. How surprisingly, ah, long-sighted of you. How positively _sagacious_.” Her gaze slid to Lysander. “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want someone else to have to do what I did to get Xenophon back -- and then have to live with themselves, regretting their folly for messing with the dead.”

“Only the weak and faint of heart live with regrets,” Bel said. “If you must do something, do so wholeheartedly. Without regrets, or fear of the consequences.”

“ _Listen to me_ ,” Euphemia said. “Surely even _you_ aren’t that selfish. Surely even _you_ think about others sometimes, and think about just how far they’ll go to get you back.”

When Bel didn’t reply, Euphemia continued, “I’m sure he won’t abandon you to be devoured by the greater dead -- and they’ll flock to you, like sharks after a bleeding fish. But I’m just as sure that you will both suffer the consequences of your rashness and ambition if that ever were to happen.”

She paused, waiting for a reply. Bel was still silent, now going back to staring into the distance. Euphemia followed her gaze, and realised both Bel and Xenophon were regarding each other silently, with the unnatural and overbright eyes of karma demons.

“I’m telling you this because that’s exactly what is happening right here, right now,” Euphemia said with a great effort. “I do not care much for your ego, but I care about what effect this will have on others.”

“Bel,” Lysander said, a quiet warning, cutting her short before she could reply. He hadn’t moved from his place.

She glanced lazily towards him, before turning her attention back to Euphemia. “Yan,” Lysander said, and this time she turned. “Enough.”

Euphemia glanced between them, wondering who would yield.

“Let’s go,” Lysander said. “We’ll come back another time. Perhaps when--" and Euphemia was grateful for that, that he hadn’t turned it into an _if_ , “--Xenophon is more receptive to visitors. We have work to do. You cannot afford to slack off, especially this soon after your return.”

To Euphemia’s surprise, Bel nodded, breaking the eye contact first. "Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. I ... forgot myself for a moment." She turned with a certain slow deliberation, her furs and clothes rustling softly, and was silent until she drew level with her brother. She glanced sidelong over her shoulder at Euphemia. “I keep telling you, Effie. I have no intention of befalling the same fate.”

“It’s not up to you,” Euphemia called towards Bel’s retreating back. “One day, even you will know fear.”

Bel raised her right hand in a dismissive wave. Her sleeve fell back, revealing the angry, visible marks of her command arrays. How strange; Euphemia had never seen them so clearly before, the smooth lines and curves sweeping up her arm and under the diaphanous fabric of her sleeves. “Then I will look forwards to it, and I will hold my head high when it happens. And I will face it and walk backwards into the deepest reaches of the Naraka myself, if it ever comes to that.”


End file.
